Dream to Make Believe
by Georgie063
Summary: The days blur into weeks spent waiting for the nights when she can meet that boy and fall in love, heartbroken, all over again. Hints of RM.


Disclaimer: Schwartz & Co. own the O.C., I'm just borrowing the characters!

A/N: Marissa's dreams may not be in order, but I think I've arranged them quite poetically. Please read and review - let me know what you think!

* * *

Every night Marissa meets a boy. 

Sometimes he's by her driveway, smoking a cigarette, muscles rippling beneath a white t-shirt and black jacket.

And there are nights where a blonde model-esque boy socks him in the groin and she's by his side, helping him up.

Sometimes a strange woman wants to take him away and she says one last goodbye, fervently hoping that life won't imitate her words.

He's appeared to her, racing down the pier on a bicycle, and he calls out to her to hop on, and she runs after him and together they clear a path on the wooden sidewalk.

This boy comes to her door, at times, and helps her tie up her white Cotillion gown, before asking her what time he needs to be there.

Nights after this, he's bowing; a true gentlemen, and they're waltzing amidst the debutantes and clapping Newportian society couples. Then they're outside and he's placing his jacket around her bare shoulders, speaking to her through silence, and he listens.

Marissa kisses him on occasion, at the top of a stopped Ferris wheel, and suddenly he's no longer hyperventilating and oh - he's kissing her.

They get caught kissing in the halls and have to go to class, but not before another sweet peck on the lips.

He's defending her when she gets busted for stealing, and putting up with her when she makes mistakes because he knows he can help her right her wrongs.

She hands him a CD, the same CD as always, and tells him that his education has begun. And she doesn't just mean his education of music, and he knows what else she's implying.

He's there for her, nights when visions of a boy driven to the edge surface, nightmares, and he saves her in the nick of time. She runs to him and he embraces her, and smoothes her hair; it's then that she feels as safe as she'll ever feel.

She professes her love for him and he thanks her. His silence tells her that he's not used to emotions running willy-nilly like so and that he'll come around, and tell her how he feels, when he's ready to.

Sober as a promise to him, she stands in a gorgeous little black dress and no one to ring in the New Year with. He reaches her right before the clock strikes midnight and sweeps her off her feet, and she knows that this is how she'll spend the coming year: with him. He musters up the courage to tell her he loves her and she thanks him; it's only fair.

He sticks around when she falls into the trap of another; he tries to warn her and resorts to drastic measures when she refuses to listen. And he always comes back, when she's realized he was right after all.

His polite refusal of her is a dream she never manages to escape. The other girl and their history - everything about it just ensnares her, but she knows how it all turns out. She's advised in the ways of love and life by a man he respects, and she knows that in time they'll both realize that they need each other.

They're on the pier, some nights, and he speaks in the language of kisses, telling her oh-so-sincerely what they haven't done in a while. It's been far too long but it's better for her, it's all the more gratifying at this moment.

She imagines that she giggles in her sleep when he takes her to the bakery shop, and they feed each other double chocolate fudge brownies.

They dance and she tells him that she loves him; he doesn't answer because replying would hurt him. He needs to leave and has to convince himself, if only for a short period of time, that he's got nothing left behind, nothing to stay for. But she knows that he wishes he didn't have to end things like that.

The days blur into weeks spent waiting for the nights when she can meet that boy and fall in love, heartbroken, all over again.


End file.
